Belgian Science for Climate Action Conference - Achieving climate neutrality and just transition in Belgium

Programme

17th March

• State of the climate system: Insights on European and global climate trends on warming, extremes, and impacts

  Samantha Burgess (Deputy Director Copernicus Climate Change Service)

• Geological Net Zero: How we will stop climate change – eventually

  Myles Allen (University of Oxford)

• Trajectory towards climate neutrality in Belgium

  B26-TCN

  Chair: Julien Pestiaux (CLIMACT)

  Room: Salle T+U

  11:15 - 11:30 | Progress toward climate neutrality: Monitoring materials, jobs, and economic impacts during transition implementation in Belgium— Julien Pestiaux, CLIMACT

  11:30 - 11:45 | Where does Belgium stand in its transition to climate neutrality in 2050? Lessons from a progress monitoring tool — Emily Taylor, SPF Santé Publique et Environnement

  11:45 - 12:00 | Mapping Belgium’s decarbonisation landscape: From roadmap to real-world initiatives — Eric Lambin, UCLouvain

  12:00 - 12:15 | Future of energy systems within planetary boundaries: A new methodological framework integrating planetary boundaries into energy system optimisation for absolute environmental sustainability — Nicolas Ghuys, UCLouvain

  12:15 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Developing climate neutrality in the transport sector: opportunities and challenges

  B26-TRA

  Chair: Edwin van Hassel (UAntwerp)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  11:15 - 11:30 | Critical water levels and systemic shocks: Impacts on container transport along the Rhine-Alpine corridor — Felipe Bedoya-Maya, UAntwerp

  11:30 - 11:45 | Commuting by private car or by company car to Brussels: Signs of change? — Françoise Bartiaux, UCLouvain

  11:45 - 12:00 | Scaling electric vehicle charging infrastructure: A data-informed policy strategy in Brussels — Nikolaas Van den Steen, VUB

  12:00 - 12:15 | The impact of CSRD on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - A hands-on tool for calculating greenhouse gas emissions — Eline Bens, AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts Antwerp

  12:15 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Climate finance and economic instruments

  B26-FEI

  Chair: Marie Lambert (ULiège)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  11:15 - 11:30 | Barriers to efficient carbon pricing: Policy risk, myopic behaviour, and financial constraints — Jelle Meus, KU Leuven

  11:30 - 11:45 | Green bonds in Belgium: Mapping stakeholders to improve their effectiveness — Felicien Pagnon, ICHEC Brussels Management School

  11:45 - 12:00 | From risk bearing to risk prevention: Exploring the potential of insurance companies as investors in flood-mitigating nature-based solutions — Axelle Vincent, UAntwerp

  12:00 - 12:15 | A dynamic decomposition for the environmental Kuznets curve: A state-space framework — Siem Jan Koopman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  12:15 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Climate neutrality and just transition in the electricity sector

  B26-ENE

  Chair: Francesco Contino (UCLouvain)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  14:00 - 14:15 | Renewable energy communities: Decentralisation and justice throughout the energy transition — Valeria Zambianchi, UCLouvain

  14:15 - 14:30 | Where to locate wind and solar energy projects? A spatial mismatch between project submission and approval — Caroline Bottu, UCLouvain

  14:30 - 14:45 | Quantifying the near-future wind energy production over the North Sea using a novel statistical–dynamical approach to GCM downscaling — Ruben Borgers, KU Leuven

  14:45 - 15:00 | Cost of inter-farm wake losses in the Belgian North Sea — Ward Winters, KU Leuven

  15:00 - 15:15 | Q&A

• The behavioral science of climate action

  B26-BEH

  Chair: Ruth Krebs (UGent)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  14:00 - 14:15 | Green words, mixed actions: Public reactions to inconsistent environmental politics — Luca Fehér, ULB

  14:15 - 14:30 | How do we make pro-environmental decisions? Using eye-tracking to trace the processes underlying pro-environmental decision-making — Zoé Bollen, UCLouvain

  14:30 - 14:45 | Investigating the ‘cognitive effort paradox’ in pro-environmental behaviour using consequential experimental paradigms — Sarah Kusch, UGent

  14:45 - 15:00 | Transitioning towards sustainable heating: A mixed-methods study of heat pump acceptance among Flemish homeowners — Emma Martens, UGent

  15:00 - 15:15 | Q&A

• How to better communicate climate science to policy?

  Chair: Bart Rymen (IPCC National Focal Point, Belspo)

  Room: Salle T+U

  Panel session with:

  Noel Baker, BIRA-IASB

  Marc Vanolsbeeck, Belspo/ULB

  Inge Jonckheere, European Space Agency

  Bert van Loon, European Commission, DG CLIMA

  Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Plateforme wallonne GIEC

• The interplay between climate change and ecosystems

  B26-ECO

  Chair: Wannes Hubau (AfricaMuseum)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  15:45 - 16:00 | Global climate and biodiversity targets on a limited and used planet — Cécile Renier, UCLouvain

  16:00 - 16:15 | Seasonal shifts in temperate grassland productivity under future climate scenarios — Essomandan Urbain Kokah, ULiège

  16:15 - 16:30 | Land-use driven depletion of nutrient cations potentially puts a brake on carbon accumulation rates in central African tropical forests — Viktor Van de Velde, UGent

  16:30 - 16:45 | ICOS Belgium: from greenhouse gas observations to policy support - Marilyn Roland, UAntwerp

  16:45 - 17:00 | Q&A

• Enabling a just transition towards climate neutrality

  B26-JUT

  Chair: Aurore Fransolet (ULB)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  15:45 - 16:00 | Institutional barriers and strategies for a social-ecological protection system in Europe — Pascale Vielle, UCLouvain

  16:00 - 16:15 | Just transition pathways in Belgium: Lessons from the EU programme CRiT START — Paul Boutsen, Het Vervolg / COALFACE

  16:15 - 16:30 | What matters? Recognition justice in the development of the Flemish subsurface — Kyra Verbruggen, UAntwerp

  16:30 - 16:45 | Exploring urban futures through the lens of a just transition: Four scenarios of social-ecological inequalities in Brussels by 2050 — Deborah Lambert, VUB

  16:45 - 17:00 | Q&A

• Effective climate services for better decisions

  B26-CSD

  Chair: Nele Veldeman (VITO)

  Room: Salle T+U

  15:45 - 16:00 | A public database of future heat stress in 140 cities to examine the potential for heat reduction via climate-smart urban development — Dirk Lauwaet, VITO

  16:00 - 16:15 | National climate scenarios for Belgium — Inne Vanderkelen, KU Leuven/IRM

  16:15 - 16:30 | Delivering usable climate information for better decisions: Bias correction and interactive selection of representative climate projections for Belgium — Sylvain Marchi, IRM

  16:30 - 16:45 | From climate data to public health action: A climate service for vector and vector-borne disease monitoring and management in Belgium — Nele Veldeman, VITO

  16:45 - 17:00 | Q&A

18th March

• Societal transitions towards a net-zero world

  Heleen De Coninck (TUE/NL Klimaatraad)

• The climate change crisis cannot be tackled in isolation from other anthropogenic activities

  Katherine Richardson (University of Copenhagen)

• Institutional capacity, democracy, and legal issues

  B26-DEM

  Chair: Delphine Misonne (UCLouvain)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  11:15 - 11:30 | State of art and legal pathways for Belgian federal climate governance — Aurélien Hucq, UCLouvain

  11:30 - 11:45 | How to govern the climate crisis? An analysis of public preferences in francophone Belgium — Emilien Paulis, University of Luxembourg

  11:45 - 12:00 | Governing the Flemish subsurface: An institutional resource regimes application for sustainable use — Syed-Mujtaba Masroor, UAntwerp

  12:00 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Climate neutrality and just transition in the agro-food sector

  B26-FOD

  Chair: Anton Riera (UCLouvain)

  Room: Salle T+U

  11:15 - 11:30 | Food’s carbon plateau: 30 years of stable emissions amid surging demand — Charlotte Janssens, UHasselt

  11:30 - 11:45 | Territorial food self-sufficiency under climate change through optimised crop rotations and STICS simulations — Tom Desmarez, ULiège

  11:45 - 12:00 | Are there insufficient Belgian fries? A multi-scale integrated evaluation of the sustainability of the Belgian potato industry — Wout Vierbergen, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

  12:00 - 12:15 | From farm to future: Europe's vision for sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture — Imaneh Goli, ULiège

  12:15 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Latest advances in physical climate science

  B26-PCS

  Chair: Nicole van Lipzig (KU Leuven)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  11:15 - 11:30 | A causal analysis of soil moisture-temperature coupling in the context of compound hot-dry events — Takumi Therville, UAntwerp

  11:30 - 11:45 | Extreme-rainfall events in a future climate over Belgium and its dependence on circulation types — Jozefien Schoofs, KU Leuven

  11:45 - 12:00 | Will you live an unprecedented life? — Wim Thiery, VUB

  12:00 - 12:15 | Linking emissions from fossil fuel megaprojects to lifetime climate impacts across generations — Amaury Laridon, VUB

  12:15 - 12:30 | Q&A

• Advancing climate neutrality and a just transition in the industrial sector

  B26-IND

  Chair: John Dams (The Shift)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  14:00 - 14:15 | Exploring options to strengthen the European multi-level governance framework for zero-emission energy-intensive industries — Simon Otto, VUB

  14:15 - 14:30 | Carnot batteries for industrial electrification: Overcoming the economic barriers of high-temperature heat — Mattéo Hauglustaine, UCLouvain/ UMons

  14:30 - 14:45 | Combustion of iron powder in the metal-fuel cycle for clean energy transition — Zakarie Bruyr, UCLouvain

  14:45 - 15:00 | Unravelling CO2 value chain participation under negative emission pricing and industry relocation: A case study on Belgium — Flore Verbist, KU Leuven / VITO

  15:00 - 15:15 | Q&A

• Potential of carbon management solutions

  B26-CMS

  Chair: Kris Piessens (KBIN)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  14:00 - 14:15 | Challenges to deploy CCS in Germany and Belgium — Stefan Knopf, BGR

  14:15 - 14:30 | Boosting soil organic carbon sequestration using rock dust applications — Robrecht Van Der Bauwhede, KU Leuven

  14:30 - 14:45 | Impact of environmental conditions on the benthic alkalinity fluxes produced by coastal enhanced silicate weathering — Keziah Peppiette, ULB

  14:45 - 15:00 | CO2 storage as a necessary solution for decarbonising Belgian industry — Alejandra Tovar Gaviria, GBS / KBIN-IRSNB

  15:00 - 15:15 | Q&A

• Overview of the job opportunities outside academia for early career researchers

  Chair: Laurence Theunis (Adoc Talent Management)

  Room: Salle T+U

• Just transition to a low carbon building sector

  B26-BUI

  Chair: Karen Allacker (KU Leuven)

  Room: Auditorium 490

  15:45 - 16:00 | Towards climate neutrality in Belgium's residential building stock: Integrating technical, socio-economic and environmental data for sustainable renovation strategies — Aurora Bertini, ULiège

  16:00 - 16:15 | Bottom-up and top-down environmental benchmark values to support roadmap development for Belgian residential buildings — Lise Mouton, KU Leuven

  16:15 - 16:30 | Impact of an energy renovation obligation for homebuyers on house prices — Peter Reusens, NBB

  16:30 - 16:45 | Towards climate-neutral urban heating: a model-based comparative study for local energy systems decarbonisation — Julio Vaillant Rebollar, UGent / Van Marcke NV

  16:45 - 17:00 | Q&A

• Circular economy: towards climate neutral production and consumption patterns in Belgium

  B26-CE

  Chair: Karel Van Acker (KU Leuven)

  Room: Auditorium 120

  15:45 - 16:00 | Setting the Circular Economy on local government policy agendas: An analysis of Climate and Energy Action Plans in 262 Flemish municipalities— Michiel Pauwels, KU Leuven

  16:00 - 16:15 | Urban mining screener: A case study of material intensity in post-war social housing in Sint-Niklaas (BE) — Jude Al-Nasser, UAntwerp

  16:15 - 16:30 | Materialising the circular city: Pathways to scale biowaste-derived construction materials in Brussels — Giulia Scialpi, Archipelago Architects

  16:30 - 16:45 | The role of a digital twin on integrated circular strategies of brownfield renovation. Unveiling the challenges and opportunities — Adeline Depretre, UMons

  16:45 - 17:00 | Session Q&A

• Belgian Climate Centre FAQs

  Chair: Francesca Finello (Belgian Climate Centre)

  Room: Salle T+U

List of Posters Day 1

Poster session day 1 (13:15 – 14:00)

Room: Salle S

Climate finance and economic instruments
ID132 Kris Bachus (UAntwerp) - Piecing together the puzzle: can policy packaging make carbon pricing work?

The behavioral science of climate action
ID78 Maud Peeters (KDG) - The Protein Shift at Play: Understanding Plant-Based Food Communication and Choice in Event Settings

ID104 Sofie Naeyaert (UGent)- Motivation vs. Means: The influence of financial capability on homeowners’insulation decisions

ID119 Hugues Draelants (UCLouvain) - The Climate Education Paradox: Why It Succeeds in Some Contexts and Fails in Others

ID20 Jean-Jacques Dohogne - Climate labelling for food products - Analysis of current trends & possible future developments

ID122 Jérôme Morandini (UCLouvain) - Convince or mobilise? Postures and configurations of climate scientists'receptions on X

ID125 Adrien Grondin (UGent) - Leveraging prosocial research for pro-environmental behaviour

ID134 Nathalie C. Castaigne (UCLouvain) - How do climate future projections influence pro-environmental attitudes, behaviours, emotions and related psychological distress? A systematic review of experimental evidence

Climate neutrality and just transition in the electricity sector
ID91 Amirhossein Aminimehr (UAntwerp) - Global Assessment of Renewable Energy Droughts Under 1.5°C,2°C, and 3°C Warming Scenarios

ID131 Tinne Mast (VUB) - Modelling the impacts of climate extremes on Africa's future power systems

Effective climate services for better decisions
ID70 Fien Serras (KU Leuven) - Reducing heat-related deaths during the July 2019 heatwave in Brussels through urban adaptation strategies

ID93 Dirk Lauwaet (VITO) - High-resolution heat stress impacts and climate adaptation modelling for a just transition

The interplay between climate change and ecosystems
ID43 Flor Hiergens (UGent) - TreeWatch.net: Revealing the hidden response of trees in a changing climate

ID51 Qian Li (UHasselt) - Integrating Distribution Patterns of Mycorrhizal Biodiversity into Climate-Neutral Land Management in Belgium and Beyond

ID69 Vera Claessens (UHasselt) - Temporal dynamics of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities under current and future climate scenarios in pear orchards

ID76 Marie Cavitte (VUB) - Safeguarding polar ecosystems: Evaluation framework recommends against 5 geoengineering concepts

ID77 Hannelore Peeters (UAntwerp) - Geosystem services: Overlooked ecosystem services and how to manage them sustainably?

ID82 Lorna Zeoli (ULiège) - Investigating the past to predict the future: assessing the climatic sensitivity of silver birch through radial growth variability

ID126 Harold Hauzeur (ULiège) - Growth Dynamics and Physiology of Temperate Tree Species Under Environmental Drivers

ID127 Kobe Happaerts (UAntwerp) - Do trees grow in volume and sequestrate carbon at the same time?

Enabling a just transition towards climate neutrality
ID41 Endale Alemayehu AL (KU Leuven) - Health impacts of extreme heat in medically at-risk populations: A space-time stratified case-crossover analysis in Belgium

ID45 Emmanuelle Kuijt (VUB) - Degrees of inequality: How educational attainment shapes mortality associated to non-optimal temperatures in different provinces of Belgium

ID135 Tom Bauler (ULB) - Governing Just Transitions from the Top: Towards an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda on Polluter Elites

List of Poster Day 2

Poster session day 2 (13:15 – 14:00)

Room: Salle S

How to better communicate climate science to policy?
ID158 Bart Rymen (Belspo) - Opportunity to engage with the IPCC
ID163 Philippe Marbaix,Camille Tomasetti (Plateforme wallonne GIEC) - The Walloon platform for the IPCC: disseminating climate change science and supporting the Walloon adaptation strategy

Institutional capacity, democracy, and legal issues

ID61 Ingrid van Marion (ULB) - How to facilitate the transfer of scientific knowledge in environmental policy-making? Exploring the role of narrative devices and storyworlds

Climate neutrality and just transition in the agro-food sector
ID35 Jo Bijttebier (ILVO) - Develop effective climate smart agriculture knowledge and innovation systems to support the transition to climate smart agriculture across Europe

ID57 Marko Perisic (UHasselt) - Overlooked opportunities: Phytoremediation between Remediation and Agricultural Practice

ID74 Shenglei Hao (UHasselt) - Carbon balance and fruit yield of pear trees under different climate scenarios

ID84 Shannon de Roos (VUB) - Crop heat stress in the Community Land Model (CLM5)

ID94 François Rineau (UHasselt) - Negative emission technologies: Enhanced weathering leads to substantial Caccrual on crop macrocosms

Latest advances in physical climate science
ID25 Joppe Massant (UGent) - Reconstructing 3D cloud profiles from 2D satellite imagery using deep learning

ID58 Emeric Babut du Marès (UIT) - Mapping the Methane Gas Hydrates Stability Zone beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 40 Ma to the year 3000

ID75 Alexis Geels (ULB) - Carbon release from thawing subsea permafrost has potential to disrupt Arctic Ocean carbon cycle

ID87 Rosa Pietroiusti (VUB) - Young people disproportionately exposed to lifetime fire danger: a Portuguese case study

ID97 Derrick Muheki (VUB) - From Paper to Proof: Revealing Congo Basin Warming Through Rescued Climate Archives

ID130 Ni Li (VUB) - Wikimpacts 1.0: A new global climate impact database based on automated information extraction from Wikipedia

Potential of carbon management solutions
ID62 Kris Welkenhuysen (RBINS) - Geo-techno-economic assessment of CO2 capture, transport, and storage for decarbonising cement production

ID138 Ceri Vincent (BGS) - Maturing CO2 storage opportunities in Europe to meet climate targets

Advancing climate neutrality and a just transition in the industrial sector
ID23 Mishel Mohan (VUB) - International Cooperative Initiatives (ICIs) and Decarbonisation: Effectiveness of the Breakthrough Agenda

Just transition to a low carbon building sector
ID44 Johanna E Liebrand (UGent) - The neighbourhood energy cooperative in the just energy transition – A strategic niche management analysis of the Living-Lab Muide-Meulestede

ID79 Eleonora Rubinacci (archipelago architects) - Architectural levers: balancing comfort and carbon in inpatient design

ID96 Ophélie Noël (ULiège) - 19th-century residential timber frames: Structural reuse potential and development of a technical and heritage assessment protocol

ID117 Isabelle Fotsing Metegam (UMons) - From Stock to Flow: Historical Evolution, Typologies, and Strategies of Plastics in the Walloon Building Sector for a Circular and Low-Carbon Economy

Trajectory towards climate neutrality in Belgium
ID159 Thilo Heinecke (ULiège) - VERBE – Establishing a greenhouse gas verification system for Belgium

Circular economy: towards climate neutral production and consumption patterns in Belgium
ID140 Tom De Mil (ULiège) - TIGHTROPE – Timber right valorisation and Forest and resource optimisation